Earlier this offseason, the Detroit Lions decided to move on from veteran cornerback Cameron Sutton by releasing him after he ran into legal troubles in March.
The Lions cut Sutton with a post-June 1 designation, which allowed them to spread out his cap hit over the two years. However, the Lions aren't guaranteed to gain cap space for the move, although it does appear likely to happen.
According to Over the Cap, the question comes from whether or not Sutton's legal troubles voided his 2024 salary guarantee. If so, the team will gain $10.5 million in cap space this year while absorbing dead-cap hits of $2.18 million in 2024 and $6.5 million in 2025.
I put an asterisk on this one because I am not 100% certain of the outcome here. Sutton had a salary guarantee for 2024 which was likely voided when he had a warrant issued for his arrest, but these can sometimes be grey areas that wind up in some kind of grievance hearing. If no guarantee remains then Sutton will count for $2.18 million on the cap this year and the Lions gain $10.5 million. If the guarantee sticks he will count for $12.68 million this year and the Lions gain nothing. In both cases he will count $6.54 million in 2025.
If the guarantee is not voided, Sutton stays on the books for $12.68 million in 2024 and Detroit will not gain any cap space. The dead-cap hit for 2025 would remain the same in that scenario.
If the Lions do end up gaining that $10.5 million in cap space, Detroit will have $40.3 million in effective cap space (the cap space a team will have after signing at least 51 players and its projected rookie class to its roster), per Over the Cap.
Having more cap space would obviously be great, but the Lions are in a fine situation either way, especially at this stage of the offseason where free agents are getting cheaper and cheaper as the days pass.
